


one more tap and i collapse

by Ehlihr (ehlihr)



Category: Archive 81 (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, static man gets a body baby bc i want it i want it-, this is very self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24764908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehlihr/pseuds/Ehlihr
Summary: This was, arguably, his best friend, and he’s never really seen his face. He can feel the emotion clog up his chest and lungs before he can think of anything to say.-Static Man gets a body.
Relationships: Static Man/Nicholas Waters
Comments: 11
Kudos: 171





	one more tap and i collapse

Static Man had spent the better part of fifteen or so years as an eldritch entity. To say he was prepared, despite two years of preparation for a body crafting ritual found after three years of searching, for how having a human body would feel, would be inaccurate.

He remembered, in some sense, what it was like to continually exist unconditionally. What it felt like to eat, and choke, and breathe. And what it felt like to make out the features of a person- to discern colour from wrinkle from eye from flesh. His staticky body lacked the ability to distinguish - basic colour groups were there, and blobs of light and flesh, but he couldn’t actually see anything. Seeing was like looking through brackish water. Hearing was almost the same.

His new eyes open to Nicholas and Morgan’s faces, looking down at him. Their left eyes are bleeding, and Morgan is covered in sweat, her dark hair dripping with it. They look at him expectantly.

“Uh-” he startles himself with his own voice. He can’t tell if he sounds the same - he’d never really been able to hear himself - but he guesses he probably does. “Hey, guys.”

Nicholas stares at him still, not saying anything, and Morgan says, “Hey.” Then she pauses. “Before we get too excited, I need to check your body. Is that okay?”

Her voice sounds drained and exhausted. He nods. “Yeah, go for it, dude.”

He can feel Nicholas stare as Morgan pokes and prods his numb skin (“Texture check,” she says), checks his teeth (“Sharpness and bluntness,” she says. “Didn’t want any holdovers.”), and checks his eyes with a flashlight. She writes some notes down, and says, firmly, “You’re all good, I think. Hard to tell with these things, but this is as un-obviously-messed-up as I can see. I’m going to go get some sleep. Don’t wake me up.”

With that, Morgan stalks out of the basement. Static Man stares after her, unable to work up the thanks in his throat. He turns his head to look at Nicholas instead. He can always thank her later, when she’s rested and he doesn’t feel like he’s made of pins and needles, still.

He stares back for a moment, taking Nicholas in. A man he’s known for five years and he realizes now, he’s never actually seen his face. It’s rounder than his impression gave him, and he lacks any jawline to speak of. His jaw is covered in stubble, and his lip still has the ridiculous caterpillar he always thought it did. His hair is a wavy, dark mop that covers most of his forehead, and his ears stick out a touch. His eyes are dark, set under his thick brow and above heavy bags. His stupid, muted sweater hangs off him, loose. His hands are hanging loose at his sides. It’s all very… Nicholas. Whatever Static Man may have considered as a funny one-liner, weeks, or days, or hours before the ritual began to take effect- to say to Nicholas once everything was over- was promptly forgotten. This was, arguably, his best friend, and he’s never really seen his face. He can feel the emotion clog up his chest and lungs before he can think of anything to say.

Nicholas’s eyes suddenly dart across his body, and he looks up at the ceiling. “You’re, uhm-”

Static Man looks down at himself. “Oh my god, I’m like, super fucking naked right now.”

Nicholas laughs, a little breathless. “Sure are.” His voice is croakier than he could recall. “Oh, actually-”

He reaches behind him, beyond the now inactive salt circle, and grabs a blanket. “Here,” he says, offering it forward. Static Man tries to grab it, he really does, but he can barely make a fist, and the blanket falls to the floor.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Sorry, I don’t- I can’t really, uh, feel anything yet, I-”

“It’s alright,” Nicholas says. “No need to apologize.” He picks up the blanket and places it over Static Man’s legs and stomach for him, incredibly clumsily and awkwardly.

“Thanks, man,” he says to the ceiling. He tries to twitch his new fingers and finds the act straining in a way he didn’t expect. It takes a couple of minutes, but he finally forms a fist, and clenches and unclenches and clenches and unclenches-

Static Man isn’t sure when he starts crying, but he does. It turns ugly, quickly. He’s babbling and he’s not entirely sure what he’s saying; he just feels the pins and needles slowly fade as his skin feels the air’s damp in its entirety, the scratchiness of the blanket, and the wood of the floor. Suddenly, there’s a hand in his hair, and another on his neck, covering the wet hollow of his throat. Even though it’s as round as the rest of him, Nicholas’s voice cuts through the air in a way it didn’t before. “It’s alright, Arthur.”

For a moment, irritation cuts through what he can only assume is grief for over fifteen years lost to that horrible, staticky, powerful existence, because that’s not his fucking name- except it is. Unequivocally, he is Arthur. He’s not really sure if he looks the same anymore or really is the same as before his contract with the Payphone, or if names mean anything, really - but Nicholas has always held stock in a name, insisted in using them with purpose and meaning. And here he was, petting his hair with stiff hands and calling him Arthur with an uncomfortable voice. Arthur keeps crying. Nicholas hums his evil, eldritch lullaby through it.

Eventually, he hiccoughs to a stop. Nicholas’s hand doesn’t leave his hair. “Sorry,” he croaks. “God,” he says, wiping his eyes with his hand when he manages to pull it up to his face. “I don’t think I’ve done anything like that since… ever, maybe. Maybe when I started T? That was emotional, I guess. Holy fuck, Nicholas.”

“It’s okay,” Nicholas says. “It’s… understandable you would be overwhelmed.”

“Overwhelmed,” Arthur repeats, overwhelmed. “Overwhelmed.”

Nicholas looks embarrassed. “Yeah.”

Arthur laughs wetly. “Nicholas. I’m lying on a wooden floor, in a salt circle and surrounded by - gah, are those teeth? - a-anyway, I have a body, and I can see and hear past static for the first time in, I don’t know, forever. Overwhelmed barely cuts it.”

Nicholas’s hands tighten slightly in his hair. The pins and needles return and sharpen there. “I suppose it wouldn’t.”

They’re quiet for a moment. Arthur is waiting for the pin to drop, on some level- for a weird inhuman thing to steal back his new body and damn him again, but nothing does. Tentatively, he sits up and feels Nicholas drop his hand to behind his shoulders to help him up.

“Much as I love the idea of getting splinters in my ass,” he starts, watching Nick’s lips curl into his normal, prissy grimace, “I’m somehow already exhausted-”

“Maybe it was all the crying,” Nicholas mutters.

“-And, I would love to wear like. Pyjamas or something.”

“I might have some your size upstairs. Think you can stand up?”

It’s a bit of a struggle; Nicholas with his cane, pushing himself up and pulling Arthur to his feet, stumbling and new. Arthur clutches the blanket around him, cursing as he steps on teeth- “They’re like goddamn legos, oh my god I can’t believe I forgot how much that fucking sucks-” and slowly makes his way upstairs with Nicholas. He can feel the press of Nicholas’s palm in his own, and the ghost of his fingers at the base of his skull. His human body is warmer than it has any right to be, and even though all the touch and sound and approaching light of the upstairs of the house are starting to give him a migraine, his anticipation sticks in his chest and radiates.

There are questions that sit in him, of course. Questions of his transactional value, his purpose, and his role in this new, normal body. How long it will take for Nicholas to grow bored and uncurious of him. How Morgan may realize that his body is somehow broken or wrong and revoke it and he’ll have to wait another fifteen years. 

But for now, Nicholas’s worn pyjamas are upstairs, and there are no recorders for his existence to be contingent upon. Nicholas reaches the top of the stair, and opens the blood-soaked oak door to the hallway to lead Arthur into a home he can finally perceive.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from jdnt by glass animals bc its a vague enough title and its on my static man and Nicholas playlist so. yaknow,
> 
> I'm on Tumblr, twitter, and Instagram at @ehlihr. say hi to me there i do way more fanart than i do write fanfiction lmao.


End file.
